


Hunting Breaks

by evelynIttor



Series: My H/C Bingo 2014 [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Gen, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Pre-Series, Protective Dean Winchester, Stanford Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-25
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-14 14:40:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2195625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evelynIttor/pseuds/evelynIttor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by this prompt from lauehime's Winchester Hurt/Comfort Festival a long time ago: I like the idea of Sam trying to deal with hating hunting and the life they live through addiction (something like pain meds maybe - which would make him jump in front of the line of fire if it meant getting hurt and fed a dose of his beloved relief). From then on, there are many possibilities the story could turn to. Dean and/or John could find out, or Sam could accidentally take in a bigger dose than he should've, or he could get into trouble. That's up to you, of course!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

  
\--  
 _1996_

Pastor Jim gave him his first Percocet. Sam had been up all night, tossing and turning from the pain caused by his broken arm, the masses of bruises that covered his chest and wrapped around his rib cage almost meeting at his spine. He was only thirteen and half the pill was enough to put him out of his misery for the rest of the night and most of the next day.

"Feeling better?" The pastor asked him the next morning and Sam nodded. His head still felt separate from his body and the pain was there, but it was floating beyond a veil and didn't seem all that real.

He forgot about the pill for a while after that.

\--  
 _1997_

"Sam! Sam, you okay?" Dean shook him, his fingers dug hard into Sam's dislocated shoulder. They were squatting in the mud and he had to be quiet, but his shoulder hurt so bad and each breath he drew in jostled it and he could feel the butt print on his shoulder blade.

Sam tried to reassure his brother, but all that came out as a moan and Dean's eyes widened. 

"Hey, you'll be okay. Open your mouth for me." And Sam's big brother put a pill on his tongue and gave him a few sips of water to swallow it down.

The pill put him out for a while and when Sam woke up he was tucked in on the couch in their crappy one bedroom apartment. He didn't hurt anymore, he felt spacey and his shoulder was tingley.

"How you doing? You with us now?" 

Sam blinked and tried to focus on his father's face. "Wha?"

"You're okay." Dad rubbed Sam's shoulder, the one that hadn't gotten hurt. "I popped your shoulder right back in, you took a swing at me when I carried you in, so it's probably okay."

Sam wiggled his fingers and brushed them against his leg. They were all still there and he could feel all of them.

"How's it feel?" Dad touched his other shoulder, the one that had been hurt. Sam winced as his father's strong fingers palpated it and forced his arm up to test his range of motion.

"Tingly." Sam said and the word felt thick in his mouth.

"Pain meds will be wearing off soon." Dad stood and Sam craned his neck to follow him. "Dean, I need the kit!"

Sam took the pill his father offered and slipped off to sleep where his shoulder didn't feel tingly and he didn't have to do anything he didn't want too.   
\--  
 _1997_

He picked himself up off the ground and stumbled away from the open grave. Each breath made his ribs burn and he didn't think he was going to be able to force enough air down his swelling throat to keep breathing.

"Matches!" Sam heard his father yell. When he heard the familiar crackle of flames and the smell of rotting flesh was replaced with wholesome fire, he let himself fall back to the earth and curl around his aching chest.

"Damn it Sam!" Dad rolled him over and pressed on his neck. Sam gasped for air and choked when the fingers went away and pulled up his shirt. "What the hell were you thinking? I told you to move!"

Sam let out a strangled cry when Dad squeezed his chest and the burning pain shot through his anew. 

"Dad! Can't you see you're hurting him?" Dean pushed Dad away and let Sam lean on him. He rubbed Sam's back as Sam gasped for air. "I'll meet you back at the car. Get the kit ready."

Sam couldn't help it. He started to cry, it just hurt so much. 

"Hey, it'll be okay. I'll wrap up your ribs. I think we've still got some good pills from my broken arm." Dean picked him up and cradled him in his arms, arranging it so his arms didn't put force onto Sam's broken ribs.

They gave him a pill back at the car and another when he woke up. Dean fed him soup when his broken fingers couldn't manage the spoon and Sam's hands shook until Dean gave him another half pill.

"Ready for school?" Dean asked two mornings later.

Sam nodded and limbed to the kitchen table. He made it through a piece of toast and a cup of coffee before he looked up and tried to look pitiful. "Dean, my ribs still hurt."

"Yeah, they're gonna hurt for a while." But Dean knelt down next to his chair and pulled up his shirt to inspect his side. "Hurt here?" He pressed in a couple of places and Sam didn't have to fake his pain and winces. "I'll get you an ice pack for the car." 

"There any Advil left?" Sam asked when Dean had the kit out.

"Uh, yeah." 

"Can you get me some water?" Sam asked and when Dean turned his back to fill a cup, Sam pocketed one of the little sample packs of the good pills. 

"Here." Dean gave him water and Sam took the three Advil he was offered.

He saved the good pills for the next hunt.  
\--  
 _1998_

"You'll hike up the ridge and we'll try to trap it in here." Dad sketched out the movements with broad lines on the new map. "Keep your eyes open and for the love of god be quiet."

"Yes sir. Right Sammy?"

Sam nodded and felt the little package of pills in his pocket. "I guess."

Dad frowned but he didn't say anything. "An hour after sundown Dean. I'll be ready."

Dean nodded and Sam followed him into the forest they had to hike through.

Ten minutes later Sam stopped walking. "I gotta take a piss."

Dean grunted but he stopped walking and leaned against a tree. "Hurry up princess."

Sam took twenty steps into the wood and ripped open the pill package. He broke one of the pills in half and dry swallowed it. For a second it stuck in his throat, but that past and he rejoined his brother.

The rest of the hike and the hunt based in sort of a blissful distance for him. He was cold and wet, but he didn't really feel it. The recoil of the rifle didn't bother him and he didn't feel any of the mosquito bites until the pill had worn off and they'd come home. 

Sam fingered his remaining pills. He had long day at school, but the next hunt would be worse. He taped the package shut and kept it in his jacket pocket, the one that still zipped shut.  
\--  
 _1999_

Dean was on to him. Sam only had one pill left in his package and there weren't any more in the first aid kit. He twitched all the time now, when he did his homework, when he sat through boring classes. The pill package was burning a hole in his pocket and Sam couldn't stop touching it, reassuring himself it was there.

Dean scowled every time Sam put his hand in his pocket, but he never said anything. 

"Black dog in Grimsby." Dad announced one Thursday night. "Pack your stuff. We're leaving at first light."

The car ride was almost unbearable. Sam fingered the pill and tried to wait it out. He'd want it more later, but he wanted it an awful lot right now. The forest they were searching was full of campers and Sam was laden down with weapons. He popped the pill and used the compass to follow the path Dad had traced out on the map.

Most of the hunt passed in sort of an odd blissful state. Sam made it to the mouth of the cave and climbed a tree. He got out his gun and rested it against a branch. It was heavy, his head was heavy. Sam readjusted his position in the tree until he could lean back on a sturdy branch.

"SAM!" The voice startled him to wakefulness and Sam jumped. He was falling, forward and Dean yelled his name again. "SAM!"

Sam hit the ground hard and groaned, the wind knocked out of him. He tried to sit up, take stock of the situation. Before he could move, something clapped onto his leg.

"SAM!" There was a gunshot in the air and Sam felt hot pain slice through his leg. He shook himself, trying to dislodge whatever was stuck to his thigh. He squirmed his way up to a seated position and tried to pry the teeth from his flesh.

"Stop moving." Dad ordered but Sam couldn't see anything beyond the red eyes of the black dog biting him.

"Sam, stop it." Dad said again and Sam couldn't see him but there was another gunshot and the black dog stopped moving. It's grip on his leg didn't release, if anything it got tighter. Sam punched it in the face, tried to pull the jaws apart.

"Dean, hold him still." Dad and Dean came out of the bushes and Dean held Sam down. Sam cried as his father cut off the black dog's head and broke it's jaw. The teeth were slowly pried out of him and Sam sobbed when Dad inspected the wounds.

"You'll be okay Sammy." Dean's fingers rested on the pulse in his throat. 

"Hospital." 

Dean picked him up. "We'll meet you at the car." Sam moaned as he was jostled in Dean's grasp. "What did you take?" Dean demanded, whispering in his ear. "You gotta tell me, Sam!"

Sam looked at his brother and tried to make sense of the words. "Dean?"

"I'll tell them to test you at the hospital. Fuck Sam, this is dangerous!" Dean stumbled and for a moment Sam thought he was going to fly out of his brother's arms.

"I don't remember." Sam slurred and that was the last thing he remembered until he woke up at the hospital.  
\--  
 _2001_

He'd put his foot down this time. It was more likely Dad hadn't wanted to fight, but Sam took the little victory.

"Get all those weapons clean. And take inventory of the supplies." Dad ordered as Dean packed the car up Friday morning. "Stay here and look after the place. No visitors." Dad put a twenty in his hand.

"Yes sir." Sam locked the door behind him and watched the Impala pull out of the driveway from the kitchen window. A long weekend to himself. Dean and Dad could go off and hunt all the spirits they wanted. He had homework to do and letters to send off. The twenty would go a long way towards paying for postage.

Most of the weapons were gone, all the ones left were old. Sam spread them out on the kitchen counter and wiped his rust covered fingers off on his jeans. He had time to do them later, there were better things to do now.

Sam flicked his knife open and stretched his jacket out on the floor. He split the stitches inside one of pockets and pulled out a package of pills. These were the ones he'd been saving. Dad had been in the hospital two months ago and Sam had swiped everything he could.

"Letters first." Sam murmured to himself. He left the pills on the table and dug his secret envelope of university applications from the bottom of his backpack. It didn't take him long to put the finishing touches on his packages and he organized them. He just needed to buy smaller envelopes and stamps and they were ready to go. 

The cupboards were mostly empty and Sam was hungrier for the pills than anything else. He made a pot of coffee to drink in the morning. Sometimes he needed help snapping out of the place the pills sent him to. There were ten pills in his package right now and Sam counted them out. It took more than half a pill to get him where he needed to go now

He took three of the pills and climbed into bed. Sometime in the night he woke up and there was a burning pain in his stomach. Sam stumbled out of the bedroom to the kitchen and took a few more of the pills on the table. They always took away his pain.

Sam woke up to a loud banging. He was on the couch in the kitchen combo living room and there was no light coming in from the windows. The banging stopped, but it continued in his head. Something in his stomach turned and Sam pushed himself up off the couch and opened the door.

"Sam? Your daddy told me you'd be here."

"Bobby?" Sam coughed and the burning from his stomach travelled up his throat. Bobby came in just in time for Sam to throw up all over him.

"Shit kiddo. You sick?" Bobby kicked off his shoes and followed Sam into the tiny bathroom.

Sam shook his head and spewed more bile into the toilet. 

"I'll be back." Bobby backed out of the bathroom and Sam focused on not moving and keeping his stomach contents where they belonged.

"What did you take?" Bobby lifted him up and shook him. Sam heaved and he was put back in front of the toilet. "Throw it all up." Bobby ordered. "I'll stick my fingers down your throat if I have to."

Sam choked and puked and swore and puked some more. Bobby didn't let him stop until all that came out was stringy yellow bile.

"What did you take?" Bobby demanded again.

Sam sipped the glass of what he'd been allowed. "Just a couple of pills. I didn't think, Bobby, I wasn't trying to. . . you know."

"Kill yourself?" Sam nodded and looked at his vomit soaked socks. 

"Are you going to tell my dad?"

"Where are the rest of your pills?" Bobby demanded and Sam handed over the few that remained. "This is all of it?"

"Yeah." Sam clutched his arms around his stomach. "Did you need something?"

"Just a place to crash kid." Bobby striped him out of his gross clothes and helped him into clean pyjamas. "You planning on leaving? I saw your letters." 

"Please Bobby, you can't say anything! Dad would. . .if he knew."

"Aw shit kiddo." Bobby tucked him in. "Just tell your brother. It's gonna hurt him but you need out. Keep living." 

He was gone when Sam woke up.  
\--  
 _2002_

It wasn't what he was expecting. The bus ride had been long and there wasn't any real identification in his wallet to get his student card and his residence key.

Sam knocked on the door to room 412 before he unlocked it and stepped inside. His roommate wasn't there yet. Sam dropped his bags on one of the beds and took off his sweater. He flipped through the papers he'd been given until he found the map of the building. Showers were on the other side of the floor but there was supposed to be a bathroom close by. With his new student card tucked in his pocket, Sam locked up and headed down the hall.

He checked all the stalls in the bathroom. He was alone in there and he didn't feel guilty locking himself in the handicapped stall.

Sam took the bottle of pills out of his jacket. There were almost thirty shaking around in it and his hand shook as he studied them. He wasn't going to need them anymore, he got out. There wouldn't be any long hikes in the dark or hours of weapons training and callisthenics.

The lid popped off the bottle easily, he'd broken the child lock years ago. Sam closed his eyes and tipped the pills into the toilet. They clattered against the porcelain and he opened his eyes to watch them make the water cloudy as they dissolved.

He flushed the toilet three times, just to make sure they were all gone.   
\--  
 _2005_

It had been years since he'd been in a motel. Sam dropped his backpack on the bed and tried not to listen for the thump. His bag wasn't full of school books, papers, and a lunch anymore. There were clean clothes on top and he changed out of his jeans, they still smelled like smoke, the quick wash at a Laundromat hadn't done anything for the smell. 

"I'm gonna get something to eat." Dean said, coming out of the bathroom. "What do you want?"

Sam shrugged.

"You gotta eat. I'll get you some of those noodles and broccoli. Still like that?"

Sam didn't say anything. Jess liked Chinese, it was a little beyond their budget, but once and a while they'd go out. They always split the same two dishes, broccoli and beef with lo mien. He didn't want Chinese from some one horse town place where the broccoli was three years old and the cook had never washed his hands.

"I'll be back soon." Dean slammed the door behind him and Sam curled up on the bed furthest from the door.

There was a bottle of pills in his pocket. After the fire, they'd insisted he go to the hospital and Sam had lifted a wide array of supplies. Most of them he'd turned over to Dean for their first aid kit, but he'd kept these for himself.

Sam took out the pills and spilled them on his bed to count them. He'd gotten into the nursing supply closet and the bottle was full, sixty pills in all. Enough to last him a long time, to stop the burning pain in his chest and get the smell of fire and smoke out of his nose. Or at least make it not matter so much. 

He had to open a bottle of water to get them down. It had been a long time since he'd dry swallowed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happened when Sam started hunting again. Covers Skin to Born Under a Bad Sign. Timeline of events and dates from HERE. [http://www.supernatural-fan-wiki.com/page/Season+One+Timeline]

_St. Louis, January 2006_

"Are you fucking high?" Dean demanded. His fingers dug in around Sam's shoulders and his thumbs pressed cruelly hard just above Sam's collarbone.

Sam blinked and tried to focus on Dean's face. He'd been hit, he knew that, could feel the slow hot burn of his blood leaking out and dripping down his side. That didn't explain why the world was slowly melting around him, like some sort of twisted Dali painting.

"Dean. . ." Sam said, but the rest of his words slurred together and he couldn't make his tongue obey and spit out any more sounds.

Dean lowered him to the ground and Sam slumped forward, letting his brother support him. His brother's hands rearranged themselves and fingers pressed against his neck. "Damn it. Sam, you have a concussion, you can't just do something like this!"

His eyelids were heavy. Sam let them droop closed, Dean had reminded him and he could feel a phantom ache in the back of his head somewhere now, pounding in time with his heartbeat. 

"Open your eyes." Dean ordered and Sam didn't. He didn't have to do what Dean said, Dean wasn't Dad and he didn't have to do what Dad said anymore either. "Sam, open."

Sam whined in protest when Dean lifted his eyelid and turned his head towards the light. 

"You feel that?" Dean asked and his fingers tightened in Sam's hair.

"Hurts." Sam slurred but his garbled talk seemed to reassure his brother.

"Good." Dean hauled Sam to his feet. "Now you're gonna walk."

Sam let Dean half drag, half carry him through the streets. His legs felt rubbery and shook under his weight. Dean leaned him against the car and opened the door before shoving him into the back seat of the Impala.

"You keep your eyes open." Dean ordered and Sam did. He stared straight ahead and listened to Dean rustle around in the trunk.

Dean got into the front of the car and the engine growled to life. The sound was familiar and soothing, Sam felt his eyelids drift shut again, his head had stopped hurting and the movement of the car felt like someone was gently rocking him to sleep.

"Eyes open." Dean ordered and Sam was slow to obey the order, he sat straight up when something hard hit him in the shoulder. "Drink up." Dean ordered, shooting a look over his shoulder, Sam avoided his gaze.

The thing that had hit him was a water bottle, the top still sealed. Sam cracked it and drained half in his first gulp. His mouth and throat felt bone dry and the entire bottle didn't do much to change that.

"What did you take?" Dean asked, his voice quiet, not ordering.

Sam shrugged. 

"Why do you do this? Do you want to die?" Dean turned the radio on, the news about the killings in St. Louis. It was quiet, low enough to not disrupt their conversation. "You did this before, on the hunt for the black dog when you were sixteen."

"I don't want to die." Sam mumbled, the first sentence he'd managed to string together.

Dean grunted and he was silent for a long time, Sam thought the topic had been dropped. "You're gonna die, if you keep this up." Dean said and he cranked the Metallica back up to ear splitting.

When Sam woke up, he was in a bed. The wallpaper said motel and the ache in his head and the shake in his heads said it had been ages since they'd left St. Louis. He managed to stumbled from the bed to the bathroom in time. Dean was sleeping in the other bed and when Sam finished and washed his hands, he went through the pile of their things until he found his coat.

He checked all the pockets, but they were empty and his secret pocket had been ripped open, with a knife, it looked like. 

"Sam?" Dean's voice was quiet and heavy from sleeping.

"Yeah?" Sam put his jacket down and looked over. 

"There's nothing in there. You aren't gonna find them." Dean got out of his bed and put a heavy hand on Sam's shoulder. "You need something, you ask me."

Sam nodded mutely, his mind already narrowing down the hiding places available in their gear.

_A day out of Lawrence, March 2006_

"Dean?" Sam pressed his fingers hard into his side as he stumbled back into the motel room. "Dean?" He called again, louder this time.

"Minute." Dean's voice came from the bathroom and Sam sat down on one of the bed, hissing as he eased his shirts away from the wound in his side. He missed the sound of the door opening until Dean spoke, "Shit. Why did you say?"

Dean's hands carefully peeled his shirts the rest of the way up and his fingers prodded at the cut just under Sam's rib cage. "What happened?"

"Guy didn't think I played a fair game." Sam had left three hours ago to hustle pool. He should have known better than to hit a biker bar. 

"And you let him get you?" Dean got their First Aid kit and pulled on a pair of gloves. Sam clenched his jaw and held fistfuls of the comforter when Dean doused the laceration in whiskey.

"Parking lot, I wasn't expecting."

Dean looked up when Sam said that. He took the penlight from the kit and flashed it in Sam's eyes. "You taking drugs again?"

Sam shook his head. It wasn't from lack of trying. But Dean had clamped down on the money and the pill bottles. Sam had to ask his brother if he wanted an Aspirin or a couple bucks to get something to eat. 

Dean grunted and pulled out a package of sutures. He dunked the needle in alcohol and pulled out with the needle driver.

"Dean?" Sa pit his lip as Dean threaded the needle and put the scissors at a close distance.

"Yah?" Dean pinched the sides of the cut together and lined the needle up.

"There's lido in the kit."

"I know." Dean pushed the needle in for the first stitch.

"Ow!" Sam tried to pull away, but Dean grabbed his shoulder and held him still.

"Don't move." Dean warned and he tied the first stitch off before starting the next one. "Should have thought of this before you went off and started swallowing down pills like they're m&ms." 

_Manning, October 2006_

"Buck up Sam." Dean clapped him on the shoulder. "Dad'll be back with the pizza soon."

Sam closed his eyes, that was the problem. He couldn't be in the same room with the man any longer, Dad's scowl was burned into his eyelids and he couldn't stand to hear how he'd betrayed them anymore.

"Dean?"

"Yeah?" Dean filled another syringe from the jar of dead man's blood. 

"I need, please Dean, I can't. . ."

Dean's jaw was set and Sam knew he wasn't going to get what he wanted. He had known it would end like this, but he had to ask.

"Go to sleep. I'll save you some pizza." Dean capped another syringe. 

Sam sighed. He could feel a pit in his stomach and pizza wasn't going to fill it. Dad, it had brought back memories. Of the thing they were hunting, and why they were hunting it. Maybe if Dad had worked hard, he would have killed the demon before it got to Jess, before it wrecked Sam's life. Dad wanted to blame someone for ripping the family apart, he should just blame himself.

_South Dakota, November 2006_

Everything had gone to hell. Sam was curled up in a tiny plastic chair next to Dean's bed. There was a bandage wrapped around his arm and a dozen stitches in shoulder. He'd wrenched something in his neck and they'd given him some good drugs and a prescription for more. A week, hell, two days ago, Sam would have put up with anything to get a couple of pills. Now he'd trade them all for Dean to wake up.

That wasn't going to help anything. Sam paced around the room and went to the bathroom. He couldn't do anything, he was so useless now. He turned on the tap in the tiny bathroom and popped a couple of pills, washing them down with handfuls of water from the tap.

Sam went through his prescription fast, a day, maybe two and the little orange bottle was empty. He'd spent enough time in the hospital that no one looked twice at him. He was a concerned family member, looked true enough and if he opened the wrong door sometimes and ended up in a supply closet instead of the bathroom, no one thought anything of it.

It was the only good thing to come of this. Sam visited every unlocked supply closet in the hospital and restocked the Winchester First Aid kit. He took pills too, bottles and bottles of them. The backpack he'd bought in his third year had been destroyed in the wreckage and Sam bought a new one, one with a special secret pocket.

It was designed to hold expensive electronics, but Sam found a needle and thread and with a little bit of creative sewing, he changed the shape and filled it with his pill bottles. He put a lock on it, Dean could pick locks, but it would give Sam some privacy and a little bit more time for him to walk in on Dean going through his stuff if it came to that.

When Dean woke up and Dad died, it was time for them to get out. The police were stocking around the hospital, investigating stolen narcotics and Sam's bag rattled around until he stuffed one of his shirts into the secret pocket to muffle the sound.

He didn't save the pills anymore. He didn't have to wait to go on a hunt because life hurt enough to warrant the comforting warmth of the drugs. Dean could ache and moan and Sam put up with it, a barrier between him and his feelings. 

_Bobby's House, November 2006_

"Are you using again?" Dean asked as he eased the minivan out of Bobby's driveway.

"None of your business." Sam shot back. 

"Can you have my back if you're high?" Dean asked. 

Sam shrugged. "Can you have mine if you've been drinking?"

"Shut up Sam. We're not talking about me." Dean put the pedal to the floor, taking out his anger on the pavement under them.

Sam would have talked about Dad. Dean was coiled up, his feelings buried inside. Sam could feel the hurt coming off his brother and he added another half pill to his dosage, every ten hours, on the dot.

The pills didn't cause a problem. They found the monster, killed it and Sam had his brother's back the whole time. He wanted to wave the fact in Dean's face, his brother didn't need him sober to work and the whole thing with Dad was easier to deal with when it didn't feel so fresh and recent, like a gaping hole in his chest.

"Shit Sam." Dean turned on the light in their motel room.

"Time to go?" Sam mumbled, pulling his jeans on as he got out of bed.

"Yeah." Dean flicked the light on and off. "Sammy." He pushed Sam down on the bed and took his wrist to take his pulse. 

"What?" Sam snatched his wrist away.

"Your pupils are blown." 

"Fuck off." Sam finished dressing and grabbed his backpack, it rattled when he lifted it.

"Sam." Dean took it and undid the zipper.

"Give my bag back." Sam pulled it away.

"This is too much. You can't just keep doing this. Where did you get the pills, Sam? We can't afford this habit." Dean let Sam put his backpack on and gathered up his own duffle bag and the weapons.

"They were free. And if you want to talk, I'm all ears."

"Fine." Dean didn't say anything else until they were back in the minivan. "Talk." He ordered as he pulled back onto the interstate.

"You first." Sam settled his backpack between his feet and leaned back in his uncomfortable seat. He missed the Impala.

"I'm not the one with the problem."

"Like hell you aren't! C'mon Dean, Dad's dead, he's dead and you have nothing to say? I'll talk about the pills, I'll tell you whatever you want, but you gotta spill first!" Sam burst out, his feelings breaking through the quiet lassitude of the drugs.

Dean didn't press it and they didn't talk again until the drive was over.

_Bobby's House, March 2007_

Sam can't find his backpack. It was in their motel room two weeks ago and he can't remember anything between going to bed that night and Bobby pressing the red hot metal to his arm.

"Looking for this?" Dean asked. He's got Sam's backpack, empty and hanging off his pinky finger.

"Yeah." Sam took it and his fingers sought out the lock. It's been ripped off and the secret pocket is totally empty. Even the pill he dropped by accident has been picked out of his hand sewn seam.

"Not anymore." Dean said. "You got over them while Meg was in you. Consider yourself lucky. This is done Sam. End of discussion. I'm going to pack the car, we're leaving in an hour."

"Stay there." Bobby calls from the kitchen when Sam gets up to follow his brother. He came into the living room with his own medical kit. "Let me see your arm."

Sam extended his arm and hissed when Bobby peeled back the compress over the burn on his arm.

"Should heal up all right. Gonna scar like a bitch." Bobby rubbed burn gel over the sigil and the line that broke it. 

"You need something for that?" Bobby offered Sam an orange bottle of pills.

"Really?" Sam took the bottle anyway and under Bobby's watchful eyes he took one, draining his cup of cold coffee along with it.

"You're hurtin'." Bobby wrapped the burn under white bandages and taped it together. 

"Dean didn't tell you?"

"Dean says a lot of things." Bobby took the pill bottle back but he didn't take the med kit and disappear back into the kitchen.

"It's gonna kill you." Bobby said and Sam hadn't been expecting that. "I don't know if you're gonna OD again, maybe on purpose or if you'll be too slow and a spirit'll get you, but it's gonna kill you."

Sam nodded and looked down at his lap. His arm was throbbing and his throat felt full and slimy.

"You can't go before him. He wouldn't survive that." Bobby clapped Sam on the shoulder. "If you can't do it for yourself, do it for him."

Sam gathered up the rest of their stuff. Laundry fresh from Bobby's dryer and snacks for the road. "Thanks Bobby."

"You call me. You need anything." Bobby gave him an index card. "There's my numbers. I mean it Sam, you need anything, you call me. Even if it's just to talk."

Sam nodded and tucked the card into his pocket. "Yeah."

Bobby sighed and shut the door, Sam could hear the bolts sliding into place as he headed down the steps to get back to his life.


End file.
